


Happily Ever Afters (Are Not Your Absolution)

by misscam



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-21
Updated: 2009-04-21
Packaged: 2017-10-17 12:46:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/176989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misscam/pseuds/misscam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There aren't always happy endings, even with a time machine. [Doctor Who/Battlestar Galactica crossover. Adama/Roslin, the Doctor,  Lee/Martha, (implied Kara/Lee)]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happily Ever Afters (Are Not Your Absolution)

**Author's Note:**

> Set during BSG's 'Daybreak' (series finale) and Doctor Who's season three. Knowledge of both shows is very helpful. Thanks to **lyricalviolet** for beta.

Happily Ever Afters (Are Not Your Absolution)  
by **misscam**

Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my words.

II

If this is death, it feels a lot different than he thought it would, Bill Adama thinks faintly.

There is white light, but there is also green light, and light that seems to be just light, shooting through him. There are voices, but they're strangers' – speaking words that seem to make no sense, like 'this isn't the World Cup!' and 'but I got Africa right!'

There's pain, but it fades and leaves. It's never left him all the way before.

There are soft hands too, touching him and a face, leaning over his. For a moment, he thinks it's Dee – the skin, the hair colour – but then his eyesight focuses a little and he sees it's not.

"I'm Martha," the woman says gently. "I'm a doctor. You're all right. Just calm down."

"I'm a doctor too," a voice come from the side, and a cheerful face leans in over him. "I'm the Doctor in fact. Pleased to meet you! Sorry about your little ship. Didn't mean to bump into it, but it was very bumpily in the way."

"Bill," Bill manages, trying to focus his thoughts. He was flying. He was flying with Laura, showing her the life on this planet. "I was with someone. Laura."

"Nice name," the Doctor remarks. "Laura. I met a Laura once. She tried to end the universe, very inconsiderate of her. Your Laura isn't in that business, is she?"

"No. She saved us all," Bill mutters, remembering faintly so many years ago when she talked him out of a suicide attack, and the man grins at his words.

"Saving, that's what I do. Brilliant!"

"Is she....?" Bill's voice is thick even to him, and his throat feels thicker still, the words so hard to press through. "Is she all right?"

"Oh, not to worry," the Doctor says, and sounds mad. "A few bruises, some cuts, a silly cancer. I took care of all that."

Definitely mad, Bill thinks, and wonders why he still believes it.

II

Lee dreams of Kara's death again.

Blinding light, his own screams sounding so distant, the sharp, sharp pain to his chest as if the explosion ripped all the way into his heart. Dead. Dead Kara, sounding so at peace with it.

He isn't, and he wakes cold and drenched in sweat, trying to remember how to breathe.

II

If this is death, Laura thinks she might like it.

She's soft, and comfortable, and the strange, unfamiliar voices have faded away to Bill's, whispering words she can't make out and still finds soothing. He's close too, she can feel his hand on her forearm.

They were in a Raptor, she remembers. They aren't now.

"What happened?" she asks, something feeling strangely wrong. It takes her a moment to realise it's how easy it is to breathe.

"I don't know," Bill says, his lips soft against her forehead. " We're in a spaceship that is a time machine with two doctors and one of them just goes by that."

"I'd laugh, but I don't think you're joking," she murmurs, and he makes a noise that might be a chuckle. "Bill? I feel strange. What's wrong with me?"

"Nothing," he says, and his voice is almost jubilant. "Your cancer, Laura. It's gone."

If this is life, Laura thinks, it might be a little bit mad.

II

The Doctor is all smiles and joy, dancing around the controls, and Martha watches him, trying to keep a smile off her face.

"You enjoyed that," she accuses him, and he looks so innocent she knows she's right. "Being all Fairy God-Doctor and granting them happily ever after."

"I did almost kill them both in a crash," he points out.

"So you made up for it by curing cancer?"

"Yep!"

She shakes her head a little, but this is the Doctor, she knows. Creating disasters, averting disasters, getting people killed and saving people in the same breath. Chaing history, keeping history, being history. Time Lord. Looking human, being alien.

"And you're sure this won't change some major historical event and make the universe implode on us?"

"Almost sure," he says blithely. "Laura and Bill, those sound like normal, non-important names, nothing historically tied to them."

"Doctor, I know you. You have an amazing inability to stay out of the way of abnormal, important names and major historical events."

The Doctor ruffles his hair slightly, as if considering her point. "That's half the fun!"

That's half the trouble, Martha thinks.

II

Laura listens to Bill's explanations with half an ear, as they only seem half-explanations to begin with. They seem to have crashed into another ship mid-air, been taken aboard by 'Martha and the Doctor', who proceeded to cure cuts and cancer as it they were the same thing and have now offered them a lift to whereever they want to go.

And the use of the Doctor's wardrobe, it appears, whatever that means.

Bill is not exactly taking this in his stride, she observes, but he seems not to really care it's all madness and weirdness and miracles he's never believed in. He's too focused on her, touching her so casually and reverently it makes her a little dizzy.

She just wants to lie down, but her body doesn't, feeling so strong for the first time in so long it's like a rebirth and all her senses are heightened.

"Laura?" Bill asks, and she lifts her gaze to meet his quizical look. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, apparently," she says, and almost winces at her own tone.

"It's almost as if you're not happy about this."

She exhales, and he looks at her more and more intently as she doesn't answer.

"Laura?"

"I was ready to die, Bill," she says, and he seems to wince at her words. "I was. I'm just... Feeling a little lost."

He is still just watching her, and she can feel something almost like irritation. At him, at herself, at life, at dying, at everything and miracles.

"Don't give me that famous Adama passive-aggressive silence. Say something."

"I'm happy about this," he says simply.

II

"This feels like spying," Martha says, but she can't seem to quite look away from the screen the Doctor is staring intently at, watching Laura walk around a little and Bill just watch her. "Can you watch anything on your ship with this? Did you watch me?"

The Doctor doesn't seem to particulary listen. "Adama. She said Adama. Adama sounds familiar. Adama and Roslin. Roslin. Roslin Laura? No. Laura Roslin. Oh! Laura Roslin! I know a Laura Roslin. What do I know a Laura Roslin for?"

Martha doesn't reply, just watches him. The questions aren't meant for her, after all. It took her a while to sort out a system of which were and which weren't, but she thinks she has it nailed down now.

"Laura Roslin, President of the Twelve Colonies? The Dying Leader?" the Doctor asks, and seems to find the answers in his own head. "That would make 'Bill' Admiral William Adama, and those two the leaders of humanity. Ah. So actually not non-important names and not nothing historically tied to them. Ah."

"Oops?" Martha asks.

"Oops," the Doctor confirms.

II

Laura paces a little, and Bill watches her, willing himself to try to understand what she feels is wrong.

He can't.

She's alive. She's not dying. He's denied the reality of her death for so long he feels almost weightless now that his reality is their reality. She is not dying.

How can that be wrong?

Laura stops, exhales for a moment, then takes his hand. She feels strangely distant to him even with the touch, and his heart aches a little.

"I think I better meet this Doctor and Martha," she says, and sounds almost presidential.

II

The Doctor spends about five minutes making Martha very confused.

She thinks she understands the Twelve Colonies, and Cylons sound a bit like Cybermen with skin and parent issues. Apocalypses, she can imagine, as the Doctor seems to dance with those every day. And Laura Roslin being the President of a fleet of survivors with William Adama as the military leader, that all seems fair enough too.

After that, she gets a little lost. There are prophecies and special Cylons and numbers as names and Opera Houses and returns from the dead and music with special meaning and Earth that isn't Earth and Earth that is Earth and by the time the Doctor gets to landing in Africa, she has a headache.

It doesn't help that the Doctor is telling it in a very Doctor-y way, seeming to think 'linear narrative' is just not his style.

She rubs her temples a little, but looks up when the Doctor stops talking, in the middle of an explanation of where Scots came from (Chief Tyrol?), of all things.

Bill and Laura have walked into the room, both looking a little awestruck at what they see. She remembers her own reaction, and finds it strangely sweet to see almost mirrored.

"What is this?" Bill asks, voice hoarse.

"This is the TARDIS," the Doctor says, opening his arms. "Where would you like to go?"

II

A box, Lee observes. A blue box has just appeared in the middle of a field, making a strange, almost ancient noise. A box.

What is it about that field, he faintly wonders, remembering Kara just vanishing not so far away.

He wonders even more when his father walks out of the box, and isn't the only one.

II

Martha follows Bill out, but Laura stays behind, watching the sky through the open door. Lee will be out there. Lee will share Bill's joy, and she wants Bill to have one moment of sharing it without reservation.

She can't give him that yet.

"I should probably thank you," she says to the Doctor, who comes to stand next to her. He doesn't comment, and she wonders if he even wants gratitude.

"You could curse me," he suggests after a moment.

"Mm," she acknowledges, exhaling. "I was ready to die, you know."

She looks at her hands, her own skin feeling so strangely warm now.

"I was once too," the Doctor says, and his eyes seem strangely distant, even for a man that doesn't seem more than half there to begin with. "In battle. All that war and I felt so peaceful, ready to die."

"What happened?"

"I lived." He looks at her, stars in his eyes and pain behind them. "I cursed that."

II

His father is laughing, and hugging him so intently Lee can only hold on and hope he has enough breath in his lungs already.

Over his shoulder, an unfamiliar woman is giving him a light wave and smiling, leaning against the blue box that is apparently a space ship that's bigger on the inside. And has a wooden door door for entrance.

That somehow seems the oddest thing about it all.

Between laughs, his father talks about Laura living and no cancer, and Lee feels a sharp sting that might be jealousy.

"Where's Kara?" Bill asks, and Lee doesn't know what to say.

II

Laura walks out to Lee's confused words words about just being gone, and it takes her a moment to realise it's Kara. He's talking about Kara just being gone, and Bill looks over at her as if he's a little lost.

This is why life's a bitch, she thinks, and walks over to hug Bill and Lee both.

II

"I suspect you know what that's about," Martha remarks to the Doctor, who has put his hands in his pockets and is watching the sky. She is watching grief, and she can understand why he is looking away.

"Kara Thrace," the Doctor says. "She died."

"Just now?"

"No. A long time ago."

"But... The way they talked about it, it sounded like she was just here."

"She was," the Doctor says, looking straight at the sun as if the light doesn't bother him at all.

"I don't understand."

"Not everything ends with death."

"Life tends to," she points out irritably, and tries to resist an urge to slap him when he just smiles.

"Not always," he says.

II

Baltar was right, Bill thinks, and hates that a little.

Kara was dead.

It just seems to have taken a while to catch up with her.

II

Humans, the Doctor thinks. Everything else, and humans are always so human. Killing, loving, living, grieving.

He lets them have a little moment of humanity before walking over to introduce himself to Lee Adama, trying to remember not to be cheerful. It's a little inappropriate, and they wouldn't understand he can be cheerful and grieve at the same time.

He wouldn't be able to be cheerful at all if not.

Laura and Bill walk off a little as Martha and Lee strike up a conversation, and the Doctor finds himself looking after Laura almost wistfully.

Not everyone understands living life as a tango with death.

He thinks she might.

II

The box is a ship, Lee learns. The size of a box outside and the size of Galactica inside, and how it flies he can only imagine.

It's the ship of the Doctor, Martha Jones tell him. She's the Doctor's 'companion', whatever that means, and she's giving him a tour with bright smiles and excited eyes, and even in everything, he has to smile back at her.

"Which colony were you from?" he asks, and she looks a little confused at him. "Caprica? Tauron?"

"Oh, your Twelve Colonies," she says. "The Doctor mentioned those. I'm from Earth, me. This planet. London. Great big city."

"This planet? But we didn't find any cities."

"I might have forgotten to mention this also travels in time," the Doctor says from the door, and Lee turns around sharply.

"In time?" he asks, and his voice sounds hopeful even to him.

II

Laura touches the grass with a hand as they walk, finding it tickling against her palm. The other remains in Bill's, and exactly where he's leading them, she's not sure. Away a little, probably, not wanting Lee to see his own grief.

He still needs to learn being human to his son is not a failing, she thinks. Lee just needs to learn to see him as that.

"I think she was at peace, Bill," she says gently, and he stops a little. "I was. It was good."

"Don't talk like that."

"I knew you'd grieve me," she goes on still. "But I was ready. All the time you spent not wanting to accept my death, I spent preparing for it. Accepting it. I was so tired, Bill. I just wanted to sleep."

She doesn't feel her own tears until Bill touches them with his fingertips, stroking them into his own skin too.

"I know," he finally says.

II

Time machine, Lee thinks. A frakking time machine. It's all he's been able to think of since the Doctor mentioned it, and all he can see is a Viper exploding, over and over.

"You can save her," he says.

"No," the Doctor says, and his voice sounds almost terrible.

"You saved Laura!" Lee insists. "She's walking in the grass with my father right now, when she was dying just days ago. You can do it. You have a time machine. You can just go back to when Kara..."

"No," the Doctor says again.

"Just no?"

"If I change that, you will never find this planet. You will die out among the stars, and there will be no more humanity. Would you trade that for Kara? Your whole race for one person? Would you?"

Lee closes his eyes, for a moment finding just breathing hard enough. "She wouldn't."

II

"I do want to live," Laura whispers, her fingers sliding across the cloth of his shirt, pausing at his heartbeat. "You're a fighter, Bill. You've been in battle. Have you ever been in a situation where you'd completed a mission, but didn't think you would return? And you found yourself accepting of that, because you'd been trained to give your life for something greater if needed?"

He thinks, and she watches him, her eyes strangely loving.

"Yes," he says.

"You came back anyway," she says, and he nods. "Not everyone can."

Kara, he thinks, and doesn't say. She's trying to make him understand Kara, and herself, and using his experiences to do it. It's clever, a touch manipulative and with his best interests in mind.

He can still resent it just a little, and he can tell she reads that from him too, smiling faintly apologetic. She always did push realities on him.

"I love you," he says, clearly catching her off balance for a moment. Then she smiles beautifully, stepping closer.

Her kiss is light but lingering, and that's a reality too, he thinks.

II

Lee is sitting on a hill as Martha walks up to him, his face in light and his eyes in shadow. His hair is a little wild in the wind, and she almost wants to take a pair of scissors to it then and there.

"I'm sorry for your loss," she says instead, and he nods a little. "Who was she to you?"

The look on his face she's seen before, and she sighs a little. Another guy with a lost love. She must be some sort of magnet for it.

"Unrequited love. It can be a bit of a bitch," she says, and Lee's eyes are strangely blue when he looks at her.

"Requited love. It can too."

II

Restraint. He's always had that with her, Bill thinks. Always held a little back. A lot back to begin with, but that changed. But even when they shared hearts and bed, he still kept a little restraint. There was always the cancer, always her body to keep in mind, and he did.

She's taking that last from him now.

Her mouth is warm and he's digging his fingers into the dirt, trying so very hard not to come there and then as she traces the length of him. He can't quite remember how they ended up down in the grass; he does remember kissing her, kissing her warm skin and feeling her nimble fingers find their way below his waistline.

"Laura," he pants, and she looks up at him from lowered eyelids, and love and desire seem to mix in him to something almost painful to feel. She's alive. She's alive with him and life is pain and pleasure both.

He reaches up to kiss her, tilting her back as he does and feeling her moan into his mouth as his fingers find their mark.

II

"And then Kara married Sam. I married Dee," Lee explains, and Martha shakes her head a little.

"Your love life is a mess. I just fancy a bloke that doesn't fancy me." Noticing his confused look, she amends it. "I mean, I like a guy that doesn't like me. Yours is worse."

"Thanks," Lee says dryly, then picks up a rock and throws it, watching it fall. "She never let me say goodbye. It just feels unfinished. You know?"

"I know. At least you got your dad. My father hooked up with a younger woman," Martha says. "Left my mum. They argue every time they see each other. I don't feel like I got a father at all anymore."

"My mother died in the attacks, but they had divorced before that. I didn't have a father for a long time," Lee says, looking at his fingers. "He's still only half."

They consider both options carefully, then Lee shakes his head a little.

"I think that's a bit of a draw."

"Yeah," she agrees. "I got a time machine. What do you got, Lee Adama?"

"I had a Viper. I was a pilot. Apollo was my callsign. Now... Now I got a planet."

His grin at that is sudden and filled with joy, and she feels a little warm at it.

"A planet, that's not bad. You got anything to drink on this planet, Apollo?"

He doesn't, but the TARDIS is more helpful.

II

It is still rude to walk in on people having sex, the Doctor is pretty sure. Even if it's in the middle of an African savannah and not particulary discreet to begin with.

Bill is kissing Laura hungrily, like a man starved, and there's wandering hands and exposed skin and noises and tangled limbs and bodies joined and a lot of biology.

Can't argue with biology, the Doctor decides, and finds a spot to wait.

He always did lose those arguments with David Attenborough.

II

"What did you call this?" Lee asks, and Martha grins wickedly at him.

"Vodka."

"I like it. You know how to make it?"

"I could find out for you," she offers, and he nods. "Best not to tell the Doctor. He'll think I'm changing history with alcohol."

She giggles a little, and it makes her hair fall across her face, he tucks it back behind her hair without thinking.

"Why do you travel with him?"

"To see," she says brightly. "I'm going to be a doctor, have a normal, overworked life. I'm still going to, but this mad, mad alien with a box took my hospital to the moon and showed me Shakespeare. Have you ever wanted to see _everything_ , Apollo? To explore?"

"Yes," he says and their eyes meet.

II

Bill is sleeping lightly after, and she watches the light on his face, tracing lines on his skin lightly. It's warm in the grass, the sun like a blanket of heat around them and her body still warm and flushed. A light wind is ruffling his hair, and in a few months, she thinks her own will have grown out again for him to braid his fingers in.

Hair again. Well again. Bill again. Those are good things, and she has to remember those too.

"It's good too, life," the Doctor says, and she nearly jumps out of her skin to see him sitting calmly a few feet away, legs crossed.

" _Gods_!" she exclaims under her breath, fixing him with her best disapproving look. "Curing my cancer will do me no good if you proceed to scare me to death."

Bill makes a noise, but his eyes stay closed, and after a moment, she looks back to the Doctor, for the first time wondering how old he is. He looks much younger than Bill, younger than her, but there's something in the eyes that throws her.

He reminds her of Cylons – passing for human, human skin, and yet she's learned to see something just a little more in the eyes.

"Who are you, Doctor?" she asks, sitting up carefully.

"Do you really want to know, Laura Roslin?"

"Yes."

When he reaches out and touch her temple, she sees stars burn.

II

Lee isn't sure if this counts as drowning his sorrows or just being frakking stupid (perhaps a little of both), but he can't quite stop kissing Martha Jones, lips soft and desires a little like his.

II

He should have expected that, the Doctor thinks, feeling his nose a little carefully. It doesn't seem broken, but it will look bruised and blue and a little silly for a while.

Another one to put on his historical CV – 'punched in the nose by William Adama'. It will go well with 'ears boxed by Catherine the Great', really.

He should have expected that, but for a moment, he just wanted someone else to understand. Like Reinette faintly did, as Rose always tried to, as Laura Roslin might, having watched the end of her own world.

Bill is still standing with a fist balled, Laura sitting a little behind, head carefully in her hands.

"You all right, Laura?" Bill asks, looking back for a moment.

"Honey, I'm fine," Laura murmurs, but her voice sounds breathless.

"Like hell," Bill says, fixing his eyes on the Doctor again. "She's not yours to ease your bad conscience on, or whatever the hell you were doing in her head. She's not your absolution just because you saved her."

"Bill," Laura says, standing up a little uncertainly, but catching her composure surprisingly fast. She puts a hand on Bill's fist, voice soft. "I'm fine. He didn't hurt me."

He did, the Doctor knows, meeting her gaze.

Knowledge hurts; he's got a head full of wounds to prove it.

II

Lee's not used to jeans, Martha considers; he's finding it quite a challenge to peel them off her. She laughs at it, he always shuts her up with a kiss before he laughs too. He's got eager, exploring hands, tracing her lines and curves and seeing her.

Seeing her, and she flexes a foot against his palm as he finally gets her jeans all the way off.

He's on the rebound from a dead girl, she's a little in love with a mad alien who is also (probably) on the rebound. This is very stupid and a little drunk and they both know it.

That's why it's all right.

II

"I'm sorry," Laura tells him, and the Doctor knows she means it. "Your planet, it's..."

"Gone," the Doctor finishes for her. "My people is dead. I'm the last of my kind. I'm alone."

"I know," Laura says. "I saw. I know a little about loneliness too. But Doctor, you're not getting any less alone by wearing it as a merit badge and indulging your losses. You have to look to the future."

She exhales a little, looking at Bill. "I do too."

Humans, the Doctor thinks. They only know time one way. Can't change the past, so they just have to live with it. He can change the past, and still has to live with it.

That's a lot harder.

II

Lee watches her face as he slides into her in one motion; she closes her eyes and swallows lightly as he just holds still. He waits until she opens her eyes again until he moves, and they never leave his face again.

He wonders a little what she sees, because he thinks he lost sight of himself a long time ago.

II

"What are you going to do with your future?" the Doctor asks, keeping his voice light.

"Build a cabin," Bill says, and Laura hums a little at the back of her throat.

"You could come with me. I could show you the universe."

Bill looks at Laura and Laura looks at Bill, and the Doctor looks at them both, for a strange moment wishing he could be in their skin and be able to find a whole universe in just another person.

Hand in hand, he shows universes. To Rose. To Martha. To so many others. He never shares them, and he can feel a moment of strange jealousy as Bill and Laura link hands.

"I think we've seen enough," Bill says softly. "I think we're ready to just read for a while."

II

Martha puts her hand on his chest as they both steady their breaths, and Lee thinks briefly of New Caprica, ends, beginnings, and wrong times. Always wrong times.

"I wish I could meet you in a year," he tells her sincerely.

"I wish I could meet you in 150,000 years," she tells him. "You're entirely the wrong age for me, Lee Adama."

They both laugh, he laces his fingers in hers."No happy endings, huh?"

"You learn that when you travel with the Doctor," she says, a little absentmindedly. "There aren't always happy endings, not even for him."

He nods, not really understanding.

"But there are endings," she says firmly. "And it is a time machine."

II

"Thank you for everything," Laura tells the Doctor, and she does mean it this time. "I hope..."

She trails off, not sure what she can hope for him. He's carrying burdens she can't quite understand, images her own mind is already repressing because they seem too much for anyone, loss of everyone and everything eventually. She lived with cancer, he lives with the universe.

"I hope," she settles for, and he seems to understand.

"Goodbye," he says, and she resists an urge to kiss his nose almost motherly, promising him it will get better. She can't make that promise, but she knows he still wants someone to. She saw, just for a brief moment.

Ancient child, she thinks.

"Goodbye," Bill says too, and they both watch the Doctor walk away until the grass swallows him.

II

The Doctor is not particulary impressed with her idea, Martha learns.

She still gets her way.

II

"When is this?" Lee asks urgently, watching Galactica's hall through the TARDIS door, his throat dry and his head just a little hungover.

They said it was a time machine. He didn't really believe it until now.

"A few weeks before your rather suicidal attack on The Colony," the Doctor says. "Don't. Change. _Anything_."

"I won't," Lee promises, shifting his gaze to Martha. She just smiles.

"Say your goodbye," she offers. "Finish it. We'll wait."

" _Thank you_ ," he says sincerely, and kisses her lightly and gratefully.

II

The Doctor is looking at her oddly, Martha notes, and maybe he's wondering a little what the hell is up with her and Lee Adama and maybe she likes that a little.

"Haven't you ever done something stupid to say goodbye?" she asks, and the Doctor shifts a little guiltily. "Aha!"

He doesn't comment, but she knows she has him.

"Bill and Laura get a happily ever after then," she says after a moment, and he smiles at that. She wonders how many happy endings he needs before finding some peace, because he doesn't seem near it yet. "How very deus ex machina of you."

"I'm not a god," he says a little irritably.

"You should act less like one, then."

"That's half the fun!"

"That's half the trouble."

He points a finger at her, grinning cheekily. "Admit it, Martha Jones, you like trouble."

She watches him, trying to keep a smile off her face as he leans against a pillar and crosses his arms.

"I think I do," she says softly, and wonders at her own ending. She doesn't think she's found it yet, really.

II

One morning, Kara wakes to Lee sitting on her bed, and wonders why the hell he's talking about finishes and her name never being forgotten and an achohol named vodka.

She thinks maybe they should both drink less.

"Kara Thrace," Lee says, and it sounds strangely like a goodbye. "I'll be seeing you."

II

One morning, a few weeks after their cabin is complete, Laura wakes to sun across her bed, and Bill already awake, watching her with that look she still gets breathless from.

"Good morning," he whispers, and his smile is a little secrative. "We've had guests."

"What?"

She turns around to see what he is looking at, and just stares as she does. Books. Shelves and shelves of books. They weren't there when they went to bed, she's pretty sure. (Not completely sure, as her attention was fairly fixed on something else when they went to bed. Bill's hands are wonderfully distracting, after all.)

"Books," Bill says warmly.

"All the shelves are full," Laura says, and she smiles as she scans titles. They're all unfamiliar, and she isn't even sure they're from the Twelve Colonies. "I don't think we've read any of these."

Bill is looking too, and his hand is warm as it slips down to rest casually on her hip. "It must be the Doctor. A parting gift."

"Yes."

"It will take a long time to finish them all."

"Yes," she agrees again, turning back to face Bill and meeting his gaze. "A lifetime."

II

One morning, and Lee stands on Earth ground again, and finds it something as silly as the first day of the rest of his life.

Planet to explore, himself to find, father and sort-of-stepmother to visit if wanting to, dawns to see, stars to sleep under, vodka to make (reciepe firmly secured now) and life, a lifetime to have. However long that will be.

Maybe in 150,000 years he'll even meet a girl and live happily ever after.

He can hope.

Stranger things have happened, after all.

FIN


End file.
